Web Design News

Things have been a little quiet here on the blog for the last few weeks. A lot of new search engine optimisation work for two or our regular clients plus all the ongoing work we do for other clients has kept us rather busy.

Keeping up with some of the never-ending changes in the way the search engines look at your site has also kept us very busy and Toni and I … and two of our staff … are working today just to keep up with the demand.

Before I head off to get stuck into some more of it here’s a little tip for anyone who is looking for a web designer. It can apply here in Hervey Bay or anywhere else around the world for that matter.

At your first meeting with a web designer don’t be afraid to tell them that you’re inspecting them to see if you and the designer will be a good fit. It’s quite possible that you won’t work well with them and when that happens it inevitably costs you money.

So assess them carefully and if you’re uncomfortable with them be prepared to move on.

A potential client came to see us last week after spending several thousands of dollars having a site designed by one of our competitors. It was only after the work was done and paid for that he realised that the designer was quite bright but had little experience and didn’t listen to what the client wanted to see in his website.

Now it’s a case of putting up with a site that he has no confidence in … because getting the designer to make even the most minor of changes is extremely difficult … or spending a lot of money to have the site rebuilt by someone else.

Being able to listen to the client and produce what the client wants comes with experience and you can usually tell whether your web designer has that experience or not.

Last week was another big week for us here at Total Website Management and Copy Text Online with three very different websites going live.

The first to be released was ABargain.com.au - this is an e-commerce site that we built and now will maintain for a local businessman who imports his stock direct from China, Vietnam and Indonesia. Our client has run a very successful bricks-and-mortar business here on the Fraser Coast but now wants to take his business to people around Australia.

The second site to be released went live last Tuesday and doing the ground work for the Gayndah Museum website was very interesting. Local history is fascinating and the Gayndah Museum has one of the finest collections of very rare steam engines, vehicles and farm equipment in Queensland.

Finally the Fraser Coast Patient Transfer Facility site went live on Friday. As I said over on our small business blog, every small business should be involved in the life of their community in a meaningful way and being one of the sponsors for the committe that is raising funds for this much-needed facility is our way of being involved in the community.

If you’re here in Hervey Bay then please donate to this very worthy project because with out it the time may come when it could be you, flat on your back on a stretcher and getting wet as you’re transferred from an ambulance to the Royal Flying Doctor Service for a life-saving trip to Brisbane.

This coming week looks as though it’s going to be just as busy and we’re certainly looking forward to the challenges.

Web Directions South 2008 is on in Sydney right now. Unfortunately neither Toni or I could make it but we are following what’s going on down there thanks to Twitter.

One take-away from the conference is something that every web designer should already understand … but many don’t.

“when designing for the web - remove everything that isn’t contributing to telling the story”

This week was going to be a rather hectic one for us but so far we are on track to get all our client’s new sites out the door by Friday.  Here’s the first one for a local builder who wanted to get his business online.

It’s a fairly basic site but over time it will be expanded. You can visit the full Daly Classic Homes site - the site of an award winning home builder in Hervey Bay - by clicking on the link.

There’s a big week ahead of us here at Total Website Management and Copy Text Online in Hervey Bay. Our target is to have two “ordinary” websites go live for very different clients along with three e-commerce sites  for other clients.

Add to that we’ve got meetings, site promotion and several site updates to work through too along with some search engine testing to keep up with the latest trends. It’s going to be a fun week

Google has released its new web browser - known as Chrome - and you can download it at http://www.google.com/chrome

It certainly has a very different look when you compare it to any of the other three major browsers and, for us, it’s time to test some of our clients’s sites to see how they appear in Chrome. It’s also time to start considering some of the search implications of the new browser because there some important factors to consider for the future.

As web designers we’re often asked by clients about how they can go about marketing to their customers via email lists. Here in Australia the law is very clear about constitutes spam and the penalties for spamming are harsh so we web designers need to know what we should tell our clients.

If you’re wondering about the law regarding email spam then here’s something I wrote for our small business blog. Please don’t just take my word for it … do some research yourself because you could already be doing exactly what your country’s spam laws class as illegal.

More and more small businesses are using email as a way of marketing their products and services to past customers and some future customers too. But there’s always a potential risk of being labelled as a spammer when you use email.

Many countries these days have strict anti-spam laws in place that clearly identify what constitutes spam and what penalties those who break the anti-spam laws will face. Because the anti-spam laws in each country are different I would encourage you to read those laws for yourself.

Here in Australia there are three key requirements set down by our anti-spam laws. Those three requirements are:

1. Consent - you must have the consent of the recipient and you must be able to prove that you have received that consent.

2. Your emails to past clients and potential clients must clearly identify you and your business as the authorised sender.

3. Your emails must contain a functioning unsubscribe link
(you can read more about the Australian anti-spam laws here)

Now if your laws are similar then there is an important factor for every small business in that first point. You must have the consent … and prove you have the consent of the recipient … before you can start sending them emails. That means that you just can’t go round harvesting email addresses wherever you might find them and adding them to your email list. There’s simply no consent in doing that.

I know that’s what a lot of small businesses do to build their email lists but if you want to stay on the right side of the law then the only way you can build your email list is with the consent of of the people you want to send those emails out to.

If you’re trying to build up an email list of potential customers then the only way to do it to stay within the law is via an opt-in option … nothing less will do.

There are some exciting and challenging times ahead for businesses who want to stay competitive and accessible to consumers who use the latest technology and those challenges are there for web designers who want to keep abreast of the latest technology too.

Yesterday I was able to attend and important conference in Sydney that looked this latest technology without leaving my desk here in Hervey Bay. Thanks to Twitter I was right there in the conference room and connected to some of the leading experts despite the fact that there was no formal broadcast from the conference and only one of the people I could intereact with actually had a laptop with them.

It was fascinating to “listen” in as these people discussed cutting edge communication technology that can take your business to what has now become known as the “fourth screen”.

Stay tuned for more because this is the stuff of the future and look for an important announcement from the ABC … they’ll soon be launching an initiative that will bring consumer focus to that fourth screen.

If you’re a web designer and you’re setting your clients up on hosting that uses Plesk then you really must read this post over on Webmaster World.

If there is one unchangeable truth in the web design and search engine optimisation industry it’s that nothing stays the same and everything is changing.

While many web designers here in Hervey Bay still seem to think that search engine optimisation is all about submitting their clients’ sites to Google the world has moved on.

It’s also a lot more than just getting a few links pointing back to a website. Google’s personalised search is about to engulf us and that is going to change the search engine landscape in ways that a lot of people haven’t even thought about yet. 

These days search engine optimisation is a lot more than just submitting a site to Google, or getting a few links, as Lee Odden points out here.